First Loves Aren't Forever, Are They WorkingTitle
by HPFH84
Summary: Race is all Fiona has ever known, but is that enough? Mush is also in the process of losing his first love. Can temptation play too much of a role?
1. Then Senior Year of High School

**THEN**

Racetrack Higgins wasn't focusing on statistics that morning. He didn't really care what a median was, and was pretty sure he didn't know what a mode was either. He didn't see himself going to college anyway, so this was all motions just to be able to say he finished high school. Its not like his mom would be able to afford college anyway, and it would be social suicide to admit he was going to Manhattan Junior College.

He went to high school on the Upper West Side, but it was completely by accident. His mother, a part-time drug addict, had gotten a job as a super in some swanky neighborhood, which meant they got to live rent-free. As a consequence, he passed fourteen stores he couldn't even afford to set foot in on the way to his high school. Most of his classmates' parents' were stockbrokers, lawyers, doctors, party planners. They raked in six figures and bought their children Abercrombie and Fitch clothes and Gucci shoes. They lived in apartments where the rent per month was more than most people could swing per year.

Race didn't have to be a genius to know he didn't fit in. He had gravitated to Skittery, the stoner who had become his best buddy, although Race would never touch the stuff in a million years. Even though he saw first hand what drugs did to people, most people assumed he did them anyway because Skittery wouldn't be caught dead without a plastic baggie full of pot in his backpack.

But this morning Race wasn't thinking about any of that. He was staring straight as his classmate, Fiona O'Connor. He didn't care that it couldn't get any more obvious.

Fiona. He fancied her to be sort of like him. She lived in his building with her overbearing ultra-Catholic mother. Her estranged dad's child support paid their rent. She wasn't rich like the rest of the kids, but she still managed to blend in quite well. Her blonde hair and amazing chest to match had caught the attention of the jocks and popular guys, but she always seemed slightly above that. She smiled shyly at them, but Race knew that if she wasn't an easy lay, they weren't even going to bother. But of course that didn't stop the guys from vocalizing their dirty fantasies involving all of the attractive females in the school, Fiona included.

Not that he would know if she was an easy lay or not, but he'd heard she wasn't. He heard from someone who heard from someone that Mush Meyers, the star of the wrestling team, took her to a movie and kissed her and she scooted away when he tried to put his hand up her shirt. Mush Meyers, who had girls throwing themselves at him, couldn't get Fiona O'Connor. And that made Race smile. And it had made Mush the laughing stock of his team for an entire week.

Besides, it was unofficial guy code, like a list on the bathroom wall, to know who was an easy lay or not. He proved it to himself as he surveyed the girls in his math class. Courtney Fry, Jillian Lou, Gina Taylor slept with the jocks. Ashley Weaver, Kelly Lavigne and Hannah Jenkins only gave blowjobs. Lilly Pryor and Jenny Freidman, well, let's just say most of those guys wouldn't want to be caught dead even talking to them.

But the thing that he liked about Fiona was that she didn't seem to be ignoring these guys advances because she thought she was above them. It was as if she genuinely didn't understand how gorgeous she was. She reminded Race of that woman in the Hitchcock movie _Rear Window_.

Race sat making swirls over his graph paper with his mechanical pencil instead of actually even attempting to scribble out his homework. He usually never did it and prayed Mr. Jones wouldn't call on him to give an answer the next day when they went over it. He just scribbled whatever the students put on the board.

"How miraculous," Mr. Jones had told him one time "That a student who never gets a problem wrong on the homework manages to get a 54 on the midterm."

Race chewed the end of his pencil watching Fiona shift her weight from one hip to the other in her chair, squint her eyes at the board and roll her eyes at her own plebian mistake. She erased the problem on her homework with vigor and scribbled in the correct answer as Lilly Pryor beamed in her delight of solving the graph perfectly.

"I'll never get this stuff," he heard her whisper to Ashley Weaver who nodded sympathetically.

"Its not like we're going to use this shit in the real world." Ashley answered, slamming her stub of an eraser on the desk and making it bounce.

Fiona licked her lips and then bit her bottom one.

Race felt himself get hard watching her mouth and he shifted his weight. He stared at her legs underneath the Abercrombie mini-skirt she had probably persuaded her mom to purchase for her on sale. Or maybe her mom didn't know she even owned it.

Race felt himself suck in his breath.

_"I'd like to bend her over her desk, pull up her skirt and f-"_

But his pornographic thought was interrupted by Mr. Jones' voice.

"Mr. Higgins! Do you have the answer to number 12?"

Number 12? Race had barely even gotten to number three on his homework paper. He scanned the problem. He could feel the entire class' eyes on him as his face turned crimson.

"-5?" He guessed.

"-5? Can you tell me how you got that?"

_Please don't ask me to get up, please, please, please. Not in front of Fiona._

"N-n-no." Race stammered out.

"Uh-huh. Maybe you should pay attention to the board instead of what Miss O'Connor is doing."

Race felt his ears turn red and slumped further down into the seat in an effort to melt away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona turn just as red as he imagined he was.


	2. Now Junior Year of College

**NOW**

By some form of happenstance, they had all ended up at the same college: Racetrack Higgins, Fiona O'Connor, Adele von Tussel and Mush Meyers. Mush had never in a million years imagined himself talking to Race much less becoming allies with him, but that's just what happened.

Mush had been dating Adele von Tussel, the amazingly hot German exchange student, since their senior year of high school. A whiz at gymnastics, Adele had graduated to the co-captain of the cheerleading squad her only year on the team (she hadn't been captain because Tiffany Brown would have had a heart attack right there if the coach had allowed it). Mush was getting a full ride to school for his wrestling prowess. They were easily the school's golden couple. Every guy had wanted Adele. What had first been motivated by lust on Mush's part turned into something much more. They understood each other. Sure, she was incredibly attractive, but she and Mush shared something much deeper. This was the first girl Mush saw more than a two-week hook-up with. And it had lasted more than two years.

Fiona and Race had gotten together their senior year of high school and were never seen apart. Mush always joked that they'd morph into the same person one of these days; it was already too difficult to tell where Fi ended and Race began.

Adele and Fiona had taken English together their freshman year of college. A few words between them became coffee and then occasional girls nights out. Now the four of them formed or a circle, a tight bond they imagined no one could break. Until now.

Fiona sipped on her hot chocolate in the school cafeteria as she watched Mush wolf down his corn flakes he was eating for dinner.

"I can't believe she did that," she murmured, as if she didn't even know she was speaking aloud.

"Who did what?" Mush asked, speaking mid-bite. That was one of Fiona's pet peeves, but she let it slide.

"That Adele left you."

Mush rolled his eyes. It had been two months and he was already back to his old ways, trying to nail every hot girl that came to his frat parties. He'd gone out of his way to avoid Adele and waved slightly at her when he ran into her on campus.

"Fi, she was my high school girlfriend. Its not like we were going to get _married_ or anything." He responded swirling the milk in his corn flakes just to make them soggier.

But Fiona knew it wasn't like that. Sometimes she found him drunk at parties, barely able to see straight muttering her name. She'd even overheard he'd gone to bed with Jenny Oliver's suitemate only for her to kick him out when he'd called her "Adele" in a moment of passion.

"Right," Fiona answered taking another sip.

As she swallowed, she heard the familiar footsteps behind her. Race. Inside she rolled her eyes, she wanted with everything in her being to be away from him, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She didn't even know what she wanted anymore.

"Hey baby," she heard as Race looped his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. She forced a smile.

"Hey Race. I was just about to run off to practice so I can leave you two alone." Mush smirked gathering his things and wiggling his eyebrows.

_No_ Fiona found herself saying inside. _Stay here. _

She pushed the thought to the corner of her mind. Race was her first love, the only guy she'd ever done anything with besides kiss, the only guy she had let inside of her heart. Everyone said they had the perfect relationship and they'd kill for a guy like Race who would call her up just to say hi, leave her sickeningly adorable facebook and myspace comments, call her or IM her when he fell asleep just to say goodnight.

But sometimes she couldn't breathe.

And she didn't know if she wanted the alternative, a life apart from Race, either.


	3. Then 8th Grade

**THEN- 8th Grade Year**

It was stifling hot in New York City. 104 degrees. Although her building was luxury, but not quite that luxury, it didn't have a swimming pool. Luckily Fiona's best friend, Kim's building did.

She called her other best friend Racetrack Higgins to come and swim with them and he was over right away. Fiona shimmered into her new two piece (a tankini, her mother made sure she had some modesty) and did a cannon ball in the pool, splashing Racetrack in the mouth.

"Hey!" he laughed and spit the water at her.

"Eeeeewww!" she squealed swimming away from him and giggling.

She ducked under water and pulled her nose up first to make sure her hair was smooth. She was tired of being the only girl going into 8th grade who had never had a boyfriend and wanted to make sure she wasn't caught dead looking less than her best.

As she pierced the surface, she noticed Race staring intently at her. She bit her lip and turned pink.

"What?"

"Nothing," he answered fanning his wet t-shirt around his body. He hadn't quite hit puberty and going shirtless around the other kids embarrassed him, so he preferred to be lagged down by a sopping wet t-shirt.

But it was something. He hadn't see Fiona in a bathing suit since last summer. And something happened since then: she had breasts now. When he watched her snake out of the water to jump back in again, he couldn't help but notice how her small frame was turning shapely.

An hour later, the three of them found themselves on the patio chairs on the roof deck "tanning". Fiona knew she didn't tan, she was 100 Irish, but she pretended she might anyway. She strapped on her sunglasses and lay back, the way she had seen the cool high school girls do.

"I'm going to go into my apartment real quick. Do you guys want drinks?" Kim asked, standing up and knotting her newly dry hair into a bun.

"Water," Fi nodded.

"Me too," Race echoed.

After a moment of silence, Race took a deep breath. He didn't know why he was about to say this, or if Fiona would never talk to him again after he did it. But he had to do it. He was a man living on the edge. Or so he liked to think.

"Fi?"

"Hmm?" she answered lazily wiping the sweat from her brow and moving her blonde hair out of her face.

"I…um…I like you."

"I like you too Race." She shrugged and applied some lip clear lip-gloss she had kept in her tote bag.

"No Fi, I mean I _like _you."

She was silent for a moment. Had he always had this thought or had he been struck with the revelation after seeing her in a bathing suit? Her mother had warned her about that this morning and had even wanted her to wear a t-shirt over her suit to ward off dirty old men. She hated the way men were looking at her ever since she started wearing a bra last April.

"Like girlfriend like?" She asked, turning her gaze to him, her skin feeling too small for her body the way it always did after a dip in chlorine.

He nodded.

She didn't know if she liked Race like that, but she was sick of being the _only one _who'd never had a boyfriend. At this rate, she was going to end up the crazy cat lady. Well, it wasn't like they were going to get married. Besides, he was kind of cute when he smiled. His crooked teeth were kind of endearing. And he had a smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose she had always liked. True, he wasn't Jack Kelley, but he was cute.

"Then I guess I like you too." She answered shyly.

"You do?" he asked, his voice cracking doing that more and more these days and mortifying him at the worst possible times.

She nodded.

He scooted over next to her and put his arm around her.

"I guess this is the part where I kiss you." He grinned. "Can I?"

She nodded slowly. Thankfully she had just put on her lip-gloss. She didn't want every at school knowing she had chapped lips or something like that.

He inched closer to her and she could feel his heart beating against his chest. She was sure hers was mirroring his. To be this close to a boy, even if it was her best friend, was exhilarating. It was like she was flying, or on a roller coaster: getting really nervous before you flew down into ecstasy.

When their lips finally met (and only lasted for a few seconds), she was surprised at how salty they were against hers.

"Wow," he said when he pulled away, as if that was he was supposed to say. In retrospect, he'd have much more amazing kisses in his life, but that's what people said in movies after kisses.

"Yeah, wow." She answered, feeling his arm snake around her hips, his skin hot against the small patch of skin between her bathing suit top and bottom.

After a minute like this, Race got up so much nerve he'd wish for the next two lifetimes he had never been this stupid.

"Fi?" he asked slowly.

"Yeah?" she answered, pushing her sunglasses up on her nose.

"Can I um, you know, touch them? Just for like a second….I've just never felt one before…." he stammered out pointing towards her chest, his words coming out all wrong, his face red and feeling like an idiot.

Fiona shook her head. To his surprise she didn't say yes and she didn't say no. She didn't take his hand and put it there like they did in movies, but she didn't spit on him and say she hated him either. Nor did she slap him. It took him several beats to realize that he had made her cry.

"Fi? Are you crying?" he asked pulling her sunglasses off. Her eyes were pink and puffy beneath them and tears were coming out fast now.

"Sorry," she gulped.

He stroked his finger over her tears and thumbed them away.

"You're sorry? I'm the jerk who asked if he could touch your boobs."

She laughed a little and sniffled.

"Look, I don't like you because of them if that's what you think. I like you because you're Fiona. You're cute and smart and funny. I was just curious."

"I know." She answered, tears still streaming down her face.

"Remember when we were little and I told you I'd always protect you?" he asked, envisioning taking her undersized hand the first day of school. Her hair had been meticulously braided into pigtails and she was wearing her favorite pink shirt.

"Yeah," she answered.

"I ain't lying. And I include myself."

She smiled and kissed him on the lips again. Maybe she did like _like _Racetrack Higgins.


	4. Then Summer Before Senior Year

**THEN- Summer Before Senior Year of High School**

Adele Von Tussel lay in her flat bed pod on her first class nonstop flight from Berlin to JFK. Who was she kidding anyway? She wasn't going to get any sleep anyway. She pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her heavy eyelids in one last ditch effort to take a nap.

She failed miserably. Frustrated she sat up and flipped through the movies that were circulating throughout the cabin. They were all midstream, halfway through each mildly comedic or sappy drama's story line. She lay back in her pod and studied the ceiling of the airplane and tried not to think about the inevitable. But that was like telling someone not to think of a pink elephant. As soon as you said "Don't think of pink elephants!", there they were, 12 of them in tutus dancing across the cavity of your mind.

Adele was nervous. She hated to admit it, even to herself. She'd been to New York City countless times before to visit her aunt and a few times with her friends just to play around and shop and see Broadway shows.

But this was different. Now she was expected to live here and blend in with American students. What if she failed the placement exam so badly that they put her back in preschool? She'd be like the German equivalent of Billy Madison.

Her English was pretty good, actually it was her best subject. She caught on the languages pretty fast and had also managed to master French. But she knew speaking the words to a German-born English teacher were much different than speaking it to American kids. Their words flew out of their mouths so fast that it sounded like one indecipherable code. And then the slang! She'd watched episodes of American TV shows in their original form and always got confused when kids shortened words, replaced them or just made up new ones entirely.

She sighed. Her father said it would be good for her. What he really meant was it would be a good way to get rid of her. Her mother had died of breast cancer when she was just two leaving the two of them alone. Instead of coming together, they had become polarized magnets, avoiding each other at all costs. Adele reasoned he started it. He was always ignoring her for some business trip, shoving her aside with nannies and going on vacations to Monte Carlo with no warning. Now she was someone else's problem.

Not that Adele hadn't tried to get his attention. She'd slept around with the boys in her school, which only warranted her a third-hand sex talk from his secretary about using condoms. She drank like a fish. She dated the son of her father's business rival. She asked her father for breast implants. Instead of the concerned "You're beautiful the way you are," talk, he just asked for the papers and signed a consent form and a check for her 17th birthday.

She licked her lips and wondered if these kids in the new school would be like the ones in movies about high school in America. Would they make fun of her accent? Would jealous girls write "SLUT" on her locker again? She sighed and reasoned people were people in any country. Jealousy and popularity and teasing probably didn't have a cultural boundary.

Adele lay back in her pod and finally fell asleep for the rest of the journey.


End file.
